The United States Department of Justice has submitted a report to the White House on its efforts toward regulating cryptocurrency in the country.
In the report, the DOJ expressed concern over the rise in cryptocurrency-related crimes.
According to it, the proliferation of mixer services which allows transactions to be hidden from tracing remains a major source of concern for authorities.
“Under U.S. law (including the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and its implementing regulations), many exchanges and other participants in the digital assets marketplace qualify as money transmitters required to comply with the AML/CFT [anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism] obligations that apply to money services businesses,
“Yet criminals continue to take advantage of noncompliant actors — including non-compliant cryptocurrency exchanges, peer-to-peer exchangers, or automated cryptocurrency kiosks — to exchange their cryptocurrency for cash or other digital assets without facing rigorous AML/CFT scrutiny.”
Also included in the report is a call to legislators to come up with laws that will aid cybercrime legislation.
“These investigations can be complex and lengthy in duration, in part because their cross-border nature means that they require requests for mutual legal assistance from (often several different) foreign governments, which can take years to resolve,” the report stated. “As a result, it is sometimes impracticable to identify the offender and bring charges within the standard five-year limitations period.”
“The growing use of digital assets in the global financial system demands strong steps to reduce the risk that digital assets are used for illicit finance or other criminal purposes — such as money laundering, cybercrime, ransomware, narcotics, theft and fraud, and human trafficking — or to undermine our national security by enabling terrorism and proliferation financing,”
“As of July 2022, the FBI identified a digital assets nexus in more than 1,100 separate investigations across more than 100 distinct investigative program categories, from violent crimes and gangs to weapons of mass destruction to public corruption and terrorism,
“Since FY2014, the FBI has seized approximately $427 million in virtual assets (valued at the time of seizure),” it continued. “The FBI has also worked joint investigations supporting partner agencies that resulted in the seizure of billions of dollars in virtual assets.” the report said.
